


The Dance

by Yu4ic



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Getting Back Together, Lovers to Friends, Male Protagonist, Not a Love Story, Post-Break Up, Prom, School Dances, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2019-11-01 21:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17875331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yu4ic/pseuds/Yu4ic
Summary: In the grand scale of breakups, Victor’s breakup with Athena didn’t go that badly. Sweet notions of peace and clear set rules? Victor had lucked out. What he wasn’t ready for was the aftermath.Delve into a reality where words are just words, and promises mean nothing. There are no rules in the game of broken hearts, but there certainly are losers. How can Victor move “forward” if the many ways “forward” are so damn convoluted?





	1. Homebound Ships

It was her idea to meet by the harbor, not mine. I resented that fact as the cold shore winds whipped at my sides and the sun warmed my face and neck. Such was the state of my body: not quite warm, but not quite cold, either. An uncomfortable medium, but a medium nonetheless. 

    A voice from behind interrupted my thoughts, “Is this seat taken?”

    Standing to the side of my bench was Athena, bundled up for the cold, complete with the scarf and the beanie I had given her last Christmas. Despite the light drizzle, I could still make out the rectangular outline of her sketchbook tucked beneath her raincoat. Her clumped strands of blonde hair gave the impression that the rain had caught her by surprise.

    I let out a brief chuckle at the irony of her word choice. Those words were the same words I had said to her when we first met.

    “Go for it.” I slipped her go-to stand-in phrase for the word “yes”.

    The bench was probably made for just two, but a third person could’ve easily taken up post in the space between us. I welcomed her silence.

    Wordlessly, motionlessly, we watched the way the waves splashed up against the docks, the way they sashayed the buoys and boats off in the horizon. 

    “Can I just start off with a question?” Athena broke the stillness.

    I nodded.

    “Have you ever lied to me?” she asked.

_ Say yes _ , I thought. “No.”

    “Are you absolutely certain?” she glared at me. She repeated herself slower, “You’ve never lied to me?”

_ Say yes! _ “Never.”

    She nodded her head and sat back in the bench, staring off into the marina. She squeezed her eyes shut and let out a gentle teakettle exhale.

    Athena opened her eyes but didn’t turn to face me, “Your turn.”

    My heart got to my tongue before my brain could intervene, “Did you ever feel the same way I felt about you?”

    “Yes!” she turned to face me then, “Especially in the beginning.” The sorrow on her face was something new entirely, “I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.”

    “You’re fine. I’m just romantically stupid.”

    Athena eased into a smile.

    “Your turn.” I told her. 

    “Okay.” she said but nothing more.

    Athena gazed forward into the horizon, watching the mist lift from the waters. The air was still clouded, but it was clear enough to make out the arriving boats.

    “When did you find out that I had feelings for someone else?” Athena kept her eyes on the horizon. 

    “Part of me knew a long time ago.” my gaze met hers, “I didn’t know for sure until three days ago.”

    “What happened three days ago?”

    “Ah ah, it’s my turn.” I hoped she’d let that one slide, “How long have you liked him?”

    “About a year.” she sniffled. Just hearing her sniffle almost made me break down.

    The ocean fog was a lot less dense, then. The change allowed the rest of the horizon to come into view. Still, the distant boats relied on the cones of light cutting through the fog from the lighthouse to find their way home. The boats sounded their call, marking the end of their journey. 

    “I don’t think we should be friends after...” I stifled my forming tears with a catch breath, “...after  _ this _ .“

    “Right.” she was doing the same thing, “That’s right.”

    “I don’t think I could trust myself-“

    “-I don’t think I could trust myself either.”

    Because friends meant feelings. And feelings meant feeling. 

    “I don’t want to feel.” I said aloud. We both knew how dangerous feelings could be.

    “Ditto.” she turned away. 

 

I don’t remember how long we sat there for. It didn’t feel like a long time, nor did it feel like a short time. True to my word, I didn’t feel, I just “was”. Nothing more. I got up to leave, but I don’t remember if Athena was still sitting there by my side in the seaside mist when I did.


	2. Act I, Scene I

The bell rang, but Ms. Strobel wasn’t about to let a tone generator drone her out. There wasn’t a bell in the world that that woman couldn’t top.

    “Don’t forget your homework! Expression! Enunciation!” Ms. Strobel spaced out each syllable of that last word, “I’ll have a list of roles and links to the scripts up by  _ tonight _ , so I don’t want to hear any excuses the next time you step onto this stage. Dismissed!”

    I grabbed my messenger bag from its hiding place behind the curtains. The shoddy floor boards behind me creaked as someone ran up to me. 

    “Hey, hate to bother ya.” said a voice I really didn’t want to hear, “But do you know where Athena is?”

    I whirled around to face David and eyed the gift bag in his hand with fake flowers hanging out of it. He was decked out in one of his sweaters with the Korean letters on the sleeves. Something about his Vietnamese last name told me that he didn’t speak English, Vietnamese,  _ and _ Korean, but I didn’t know for sure. That was one of the few thoughts about David that I kept to myself.

    I couldn’t help but notice that the arm David was using to carry the gift bag had a sketchbook tucked under it. I was only half surprised to catch that it was the same brand and size as Athena’s, just a different color. Athena’s was blue, but David’s was brown. 

    “How should I know?” I shouldered my bag strap and hopped off the stage.

    “I just figured that, you know...” he smiled smugly and shifted his feet and made the floorboards creak.

    “Narissa said Athena’s at home, sick. Shouldn’t you have known that before I did?”

    “Oh, crap.” he looked down at his birthday gift for her. He noticed me turn to leave, “Hey, thanks man! You’re the best!”

    I bit my tongue as I passed through the double doors, so my response came out as an “Mlmhm.”

    The door behind me slowed down and clicked shut silently. Silence. Such was the state of my mind. In the background, I was occupied with hurrying myself to Art Lit. II, but the one thing that occupied my foreground thinking was my breathing. My exhales slowed to silent whispers, just like the air under the amphitheater door.

    I opened the door to the art room just a crack and slipped in. The room was dim. To my classmates, my entrance was about as eventful as the static whirring of the projector. A substitute sat in the teacher’s chair with the enthusiasm of a house cat. 

    “What’d I miss?” I asked my friend Narissa softly. The nice thing about Narissa was that she didn’t care to take sides when Athena and I stopped becoming an “and” statement. I didn’t care that Narissa was technically Athena’s friend first; Narissa had mastered the art of playing both sides without letting her duality get to her head.

    “Basically nothing.” Narissa yawned, “Dopey over there’s been fading in and out of the mortal plane.”

    The anxious tension in my face cracked into a smile. The substitute  _ did _ look like he was ascending to the spirit realm with his glazed over eyes and drool droplet forming down his cheek.

    I was in the middle of unpacking my art supplies when a math packet slid into my view. Narissa used two fingers to push them towards me.

    “Think you can help?” she tapped the title of the page she was on. 

    “Are you assuming I’m good at math just because I’m asian?” I kid. Narissa had just as much Chinese blood in her as I did in me.

    “I know I’m not.” she rolled a pencil towards me, “I’m a bad asian.”

    “Not everyone is made on the same assembly line.”

    I glanced at substitute Dopey, then checked the clock. The starting bell rang. Dopey gave reason to believe Sleepy would’ve been a better dwarf nickname. 

    “Statistics?” I finally read what Narissa was pointing at, “Isn’t that more of Athena’s forte?”

     Narissa stared at me blankly.

    “Right.” I remembered, “I can try, but it’s been awhile since I’ve taken Stats.”

    “Show off.”

    My mouth whispered equations and formulas to Narissa, but I allowed my mind to wander again. 

_ God, if only Athena could see me now: Happy.  _

    “Crap, he’s up.” Narissa whispered. She shifted her attention to the projector screen and pretended to focus. 

    “Can I write on this?” I whispered back. I waited for her to give me the go ahead before I etched examples into the margins. 

    That’s when it occurred to me:  _ my intermission _ . My first upside since the day everything went upside down.

_ I don’t have to feel guilty about liking Narissa anymore, _ I thought breathlessly in exhilaration. All those nights I used to spend berating myself for thinking about Narissa when I promised to be faithful to Athena― I didn’t have to run that routine anymore. As far as Athena was concerned, I could feel how I wanted to feel around our mutual friend.

    That thought alone lifted me out of the ravine I’d been digging myself into ever since that night at the harbor. I knew I had to slam the floodgates on my feelings for Narissa. Any filters my mind put in place in favor of Athena were long gone, and my head was already going wild on fruits that were no longer forbidden. 

    “Permutations.” Narissa finished the formula I’d left open on her paper. She prodded my hand away with the eraser end of her pencil, then wrote out “nPr” in the empty space I had left behind.

    Dopey wrapped up his lecture and started to walk around the room. Narissa casually slid the math packet under her pink portfolio as I set my own blue folder in front of me. Unlike my internal floodgates, I opened my folder all the way. Inside, I let my feelings for Narissa trickle back into the open and I began to explore the plethora of buried thoughts.


	3. Unknown

My bed was so welcoming and the ceiling was so enticing to watch. I’d been laying there for ten minutes or so when the ping of a text made me sit up.

     _Text message?_ I pondered as I crawled over to my phone, _Who uses default texting apps anymore?_

    The only people I could think of that would fit the bill were my uncle and the service provider. Everyone else I knew used other apps, and _those_ apps were silenced.

    Instead of a name, the message was accompanied by 10 unfamiliar digits. A new number.

    “Have you checked Strobel’s page yet?” it read.

     _No, I haven’t_. I threw my phone onto my bed. I pulled my messenger bag out from under my desk and scrounged around for my laptop in the dark.

    “Strobel’s page, huh?” I muttered as I keyed in the first few characters of the URL and let the suggestions take care of the rest.

    The familiar maroon page with burgundy borders and gold lettering pulled up. At first, nothing seemed worthy of a mystery text. Ms. Strobel’s home page’s latest blog post was the list of role assignments for the upcoming play. I found my name among the many, then tried to sound out the name of my character. I hated that about non-contemporary productions; the characters’ names were so ambiguous that they sounded more like the names of countries than actual people.

    I opened up the script, hit “ctrl+f”, then skimmed every instance of my character’s name among the hundreds of lines and dozens of digital pages. I really didn’t have much to do in the play, _thank god_ . The only thing readily wrong with my lines were that none of them were singing roles. I didn’t even interact with the star of the show, which of course upon further inspection turned out to be David. There were only two scenes starring my character, and they were in two separate acts; the first act and the final act. Usually I’d have to worry about reacting to other people screwing up their lines before or after mine, but I was relieved to know that I wouldn’t have to do much extra memorization for once. In fact, the number of other characters I had to worry about amounted to just... _just one?_

    Most of my scenes revolved around just one other character.

     _No,_ I corrected myself, all of them did.

    I tabbed back to the homepage and scanned the list, searching for who was playing this other character. Some worm in my gut already knew, yet my heart sank all the same. _Just another ambiguous name_ .  
     _The number._

    I dove onto my bed and fumbled for my phone, then navigated to the built-in messaging app. The mysterious number wasn’t a new number at all. It had a text history.

 

**[~~~~~]**

[May 16th]

**Me:** “We need to talk.”

**New Number:** “I know.”

**Me:** “In person.”

**New Number:** “That’s what I was thinking.”

**New Number:** “Boardwalk tmr?”

**Me:** “Sure.”

 

[Today]

**New Number:** “Have you checked Strobel’s page yet?”

**[~~~~~]**

 

    “Just did.” I replied.

    I set my phone down and turned my attention back to my laptop. To my surprise, my phone buzzed an incoming text tone before I’d taken two steps away.

    “Are you free to practice after school tomorrow? I’m busy over the weekend.” Athena had texted.

    I sent back four letters, “Sure.”

    Athena sent back two, “CU.”


	4. Intermission

_Hair’s good_ . I thought. My teeth felt fresh from the brush job. _I ate… something_.

    I jostled my messenger bag. It didn’t feel like I’d forgotten anything. My nostrils still exuded the sterile scent of nasally applicated allergy medicine. That last one was the most important thing not to forget; I’d be sneezing and stifling a runny nose all day, otherwise.

    It was a wonderful start to the day, aside from my car not starting. My phone flickered to life and I perused the online bus schedule one last time; I was still making good pace for the public transit. My digital pass seemed in order, as well.

    Before I tucked my phone back into its denim holster, I made the mistake of catching the name of the song scrolling through my standby screen. The album cover; the headphone cord that trailed out the jack, snaked up beneath my shirt and branched into my ears; all things that I had seen before I heard the giveaway lyrics in full effect. I slowed to a stop.

    I became breathless, breathless like when I saw Athena in a dress for the first time breathless. That was the night that the DJ played a song that I hadn’t learned to hate yet. Its bass coursed under my shirt and past the skin all the way down to the bone. That was the night when Athena and I had danced together like we hadn’t learned how to hate yet.

    My phone trembled in my grasp.

    The iconic screech of the transit bus reaching its stop sliced through my thoughts and earbud tunes with ease. I jammed the phone into my pocket and sprinted.

    “Good hustle.” the driver’s comment marked the moment I crossed the imaginary finish line. I showed the driver my digital pass, not that either of us were fully aware at that point. We were just going through the motions.

    “Thank you.” I shilled thoughtlessly. The song was still playing, moments away from the next chorus. I staggered to the nearest empty seat, exhausted physically as much as I was mentally. I fished my phone back out of my pocket as the bus’ departure pushed my spine and shoulders against the seat cushion.

    Within seconds, my thumb was hovering over the song’s “delete” button. The album cover looked back at me, pleading to be spared.

    I had my hand cupped around my phone case with the same grace that I held Athena’s hand with when we made our way to the dance floor two years prior. My thumb waned away from the screen, defeated.

    The next instance of the chorus arrived, and I eased into it the way one would ease into a lake or a pool. I permitted the player bar to tick through the seconds as if I didn’t know how the song was going to end.

 

 

One of the nice benefits from having theatre class was the natural ability to hide how I really felt. If I willed a particular feeling enough, I’d be able to mask the inside as well as I could the outside.

    I had no such luck that morning.

    I had no trouble playing the part of a sleep-deprived teen fresh off of the trek from the nearest bus station to the school foyer, but my stomach was brewing with mush and my brain was a hurricane. I wore a whelming expression to bottlecap the existential crisis within.

    As I trudged up the steps to the academy, I tried to focus on the positives.

    _Strobel says I project better than most. Positive. Athena gets really entrenched in her theatre rolls. Positive. Only two small parts? Definitely a positive._

    “Hey, Vic!” Narissa waved me down and left her friends. Her happiness faded to concern, “You okay?”

    “Yeah, yeah no I’m good.” I faked a yawn, “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

    “Dude, same. I couldn’t stop thinking about Prom.”

    I was only half listening to what Narissa was talking about because I had already found my next positive, and it was coming from the other end of the hall. David and Athena were heading towards Narissa and I. Narissa _and_ I.

    “Promposal?” I finally processed what Narissa had been talking about.

    “Yeah, Prom’s in four weeks. Did you forget?”

    “How could I?” I trailed off, making a careful effort to avoid eye contact with David and Athena as we passed them without incident. I’d gotten away with my little flaunt.

     _They think I’m happy,_ I cheered inside, _They think-_

    “Oh hey, Narissa, just who I wanted to see!” David’s voice suffocated my ears. He turned to me and smiled a smile as fake as my own, “Victor,” then looked back at Narissa, “Anyways, I’m having a party at my place this weekend for my birthday. You guys wanna come?”

    “Sure!” Narissa said before I could say something stupid, “Should we bring gifts?”

    “Don’t, I insist. It’s just gonna be a good time. On me. And my parents.”

     _“Good”, sure. “Good” like taking a nap in a wood-chipper “good”._

    “Thanks for the invite, really.” I still had my mask on, “See you guys.”

    “See you!” Athena waved at Narissa. Then, Athena’s eyes caught mine. For a second, our true emotions rippled through our facades.

    My stomach felt like it had been turned into ground beef and dumped into my mush stew. I still found it relieving to see how in that millisecond of a ripple, Athena’s eyes looked like mine: guilty.

 


	5. Mother of Mastery

At the end of the day, the halls were devoid of all signs of life. For three hall lengths and scores of lockers’ distance, I was alone to my footsteps. Even if I counted the hall monitor that almost didn’t let me back into the building, my statement still held; I’ve seen fried trout fish with more life than that woman. 

    A cool breeze washed over me as I stepped through the second set of double doors and set foot into the amphitheater. I was already chilled to the bone, but even then the amphitheater breeze soothed my nerves. 

    The heavy  _ thud _ of the door alerted Athena, who was sitting on the edge of the stage. Her head jerked up, though she said nothing. She waved at me, devoid of life.

    My mouth hung slightly parted, unsure of itself or what to say, as I returned the gesture. Then, David walked out from behind the curtain from stage left. He was carrying a box of props center stage. I bit one of my cheeks to shift my expression back down to “neutral”.

    I let my tongue slip when he had the audacity to smile at me, “Don’t you have your own scenes to memorize, David?”

    “I do. But what I don’t have-“ David sat himself beside Athena, “-is a ride home. That’s what Athena’s for.”

    “Did you bring the script?” Athena asked me, paying no attention to the arm David had draped around her.

    “Yeah.” I flipped open the flap of my messenger bag and jammed my hand inside. I thumbed past my laptop and came across loose pages. And more pages. No glossy folder. “Or not.”

    Athena rolled her eyes at me with maternal disappointment. She pulled her copy of the script out from behind her and patted the space on the stage next to her. 

    David pulled Athena closer to him like I didn’t have the whole rest of the stage to myself. I hoisted myself onto the stage and took a seat. Athena held out the script between us for the two of us to see. David peered over her shoulder.

    The script had only been out for half a day, but Athena’s copy was already pockmarked with margin notes. I leaned in a little closer and noticed she had color coded our lines: hers highlighted blue, and mine highlighted yellow. Her finger pointed at the start of our first part, marked with yellow. 

    I read the line attentively. It came out sourly in places it shouldn’t have. The line had left a rotten taste on my tongue by the time I finished it. 

    Athena stepped into her line without skipping a beat. When she finished her line, she seemed taken aback as if she too had managed to offend herself. She mouthed the words soundlessly as she reread the line, searching for the discrepancy. 

_ Maybe it’s the posture. _ I unfurled my spine and lowered my shoulders. Chest proud, I delivered the next yellow line. The bitterness didn’t change. 

    “Stand up for a sec, Vic.” David told me.

    My need to evacuate the seating arrangement outweighed my reluctance to listen to his words. I happily obliged.

    David dug around the prop box, then lobbed a fake book to me, “Should help with the next scene,” he nuzzled Athena to congratulate himself.

    Athena flipped the script so I could read the next bit of highlighted yellow. 

_ He wasn’t wrong _ .

    I moved back beside Athena, standing that time. I hunched slightly to model an exaggeration, then pointed at the imaginary letters in the prop book for Athena to pretend to read as I delivered my third line.

    “You weren’t kidding when you said you two needed practice.” Ms. Strobel surprised us all by using one of the quieter backstage entrance doors, “David? You’re not in this scene.”

    “Yes, but-“ David gestured at Athena.

    “I’m running a theatre, not a daycare.”

    “But-“

    “No buts. No distractions.” Ms. Strobel plopped her stuff down center stage next to the prop box, “Out, David.”

    David narrowed his eyes in defeat and got up. 

    “I’ll be in the car.” he whispered to Athena as he bundled up his jacket in his hands. 

    The silent backstage door shut behind David not-so-silently. 

    “Ms. Strobel,” Athena piped up, “I thought you said you were going to get your food to-go?”

    Ms. Strobel turned to her rather lacking pile of stuff center stage, “Left it in the car.” she headed for the same door David left through, “I’ll be right back. Don’t do anything that’ll get me fired.”

    She left just as silently as she had entered. 

    Athena threw the script aside and let herself lay on the stage. I took a seat in one of the plentiful front row chairs in the audience. I let myself slouch and filled my lungs, but the air felt heavy. 

    “I still haven’t gotten a call back about my job application at that craft store.” Athena said to the rafters and the skywalk.

    “Ouch.” I racked my brain for something consoling, “Maybe re-apply as seasonal and see where that takes you?”

    “Maybe.”

    I looked up at the rafters, too. Part of me envied the prop riggers, but I was also glad I wasn’t one of them. I looked on at the skywalks wondering if the rush of being up there was worth the piss-poor view of what was really going on stage front.

    “Have you found a room for Sing Club yet?” Athena broke the silence without moving.

    I sat up taller to peer past the stage, then over my shoulder. “Mathers isn’t willing, and Luong’s a hard ‘no’ for me no matter what he says. Strobel said  _ maybe _ .”

    “But?”

    “But I have to pay for the songs myself.”

    “Ouch.”

    My surroundings began swapping out bits and pieces of itself like it was teeming full of invisible prop riggers prepping the next act. The sliver of the stage that Athena lay upon slunked behind the curtains and was replaced by her car, the chair I sat in became her picnic blanket, the rafters were the stars, the auditorium was the countryside… 

     I scrubbed the memory from my consciousness. I became a blank slate. A projector with no slides. The first thought that I loaded in was  _ Narissa _ , and so was the second. And the third. 

    I pictured Narissa’s straight black hair first— straight because she refused to put it up or braid it after she combed it. I pictured Narissa’s scrunched up face that she made whenever something made her think too hard. Really, the one thing that wasn’t perfect about Narissa was her singing voice, which in her own quirky way was just another adorable facet of her personality. 

    “Ready to try again?” Athena wavered the script in her hands to catch my attention.

    “I think so.” I got up and sat beside her.

    I read the first yellow line. Athena read the first blue line. We flashed smiles at each other. I read my second, she read her second; my third, her third, fourths, fifths, sixths— the line’s were coming out like waves of butter, each line a high tide of emotion and passion.

    “Beautiful.” Ms. Strobel made us both jump again, “Make every line like that. What section are we in?”

    I squinted down at Athena’s script, “Act three, scene one.”


	6. Intermission

_Stubborn_. I thought as I passed yet another Prom poster peeling from the walls. The gust of wind I created from passing it too closely was enough to loosen the falling flap of paper down an extra inch or two.

    The hallways surged with the eb and flow of high schoolers everywhere. Even then, I was alone. People taking up the width of the hall, people standing in the way of crucial corners. Eyes. Everywhere.

    It was so much easier to let all that slide when Narissa was around― _Where was she?_ Without her to be the centerpiece of my thoughts, the whole rest of the world came into view.  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like being left to my thoughts. I knew how dangerous that could be. I hooked my earbuds out of my pocket and started untangling them.

    The bell rang, ushering solicitors to become silent sitters. I turned the volume of my music down a couple notches and glanced up at the clock above the door. Like clockwork, Narissa slipped into the room. She gave a curt nod to our English Literacy teacher before hustling to her seat next to me.

    Before I could ask Narissa a single question she pushed her own, “You’re into design, right?”

    “Yeah,” I matched her hushed tone, “Why?”

    She slid her phone over to me and pointed at the picture on it, “How’s this for a promposal? I’ve been working on it all night.”

    Her phone screen depicted a pencil sketch on a notecard. A label in the corner annotated it as “Draft #16”. There were bubble letters and underlines, but no colors. There were, however, three words written on the side that helped the bleakness: “(blue)”, “(pink)”, and “(green)”.

    The bubble letters read “Will^2 yOu = nPr(om) w/ me?”

    “Hang on.” I said to her and looked up at our Eng. Lit. teacher as he addressed the room. I slid Narissa’s phone back to her and pulled my own out of my pocket.

 

**[~~~~~]**

[Today]

      **Me:** “Who?”

      **Narrissa:** “Will.

      **Narrissa:** We have Stats together.”

      **Me:** “Makes sense.

      **Me:** Looks good!”

      **Narrissa:** “Yes he does ;>

      **Narrissa:** But srsly it looks fine?”

      **Me:** “It looks great!

      **Me:** Creative is always good.

      **Me:** Go for it!”

      **Narrissa:** “Awesome, thnx!"

**[~~~~~]**

  


    I switched my phone off and whispered in real life, “Welcs.”

    Narissa smiled at me gratuitously. I returned a smile of my own, but I was blind to the warmth from hers. Even though I wasn't actually falling, I clenched my seat with my freehand, bracing for when something would hit.

    There it was. The mental train wreck derailed itself from my cerebellum and tumbled out through my mouth. I coughed to suppress it. The train of thought named “Narissa” was gone and my brain felt 25% lighter without it. The bare train tracks beneath read “Athena”.

    I jotted down that day’s warm up, keeping my free hand clutching the seat of my chair. The pangs of loneliness were coming in from all angles. I resigned myself to such a fate as the outside thoughts flowed in like a leak in a sinking paddle boat.


	7. Loop Mode

“I’m outside.” I texted Narissa.

     After sitting there for ten minutes, I killed the engine. David’s birthday party could wait, but my gas wouldn’t. I fished my phone out of the cupholder and launched my music player. While my left hand worked on untangling my earbuds, my right hand navigated to the “downloads” folder. 

     I popped in an earbud and gave one of the songs a listen. The lyrics were hopeful for something more than a distant relationship. A sweet feeling welled up in my gut. Definitely one for my “Falling For You” playlist. The next song in the queue was quickly put into the “I Miss You” class of love songs, skipped, then ignored. Song number three played its opening, but I wasn’t listening anymore. 

     I jumped as someone knocked on my passenger side window. Narissa’s face peeked in through the tint. Relieved, I popped open the door locks.

     Narissa climbed into shotgun, “Thanks for the ride.”

     “Anytime.” I swiped back to the playlist menu until I found the “Upbeat” playlist.

     Narissa’s dad waved at me from the porch. I smiled and waved back. The smile was gone by the time I peeled away from the curb. 

     “Huh. I haven’t heard this one in a while.”

     I tuned back into the lyrics. She had a point.

     “When was this, fourth grade?” I was already tuning out the lyrics along with my memories. 

     “Was it? I mean, it feels like two years ago, but I could’ve sworn this was  _ the  _ song back in middle school.”

     “Hm.” I focused on the road. 

     My fingernails started to play with the stitching of the steering wheel cover. I drummed them my fingers, tapped my thumbs on the wheel, bounced my free knee; anything to keep me from noticing that the “Upbeat” playlist wasn’t working. In the very least, it was stopping any unwanted memories from surfacing. 

     “Green.” Narissa was watching me through the rearview mirror. 

     Right on que, the car behind me honked. I padded the gas pedal through the intersection and brought myself back up to speed. Before us lay several hundred feet of straight, uninterrupted road. The car that had honked shrunk in the mirror. We were in the clear. 

     I snuck a glance at Narissa and my heart sank. She had her head tilting towards the passenger side window, but I could still see the disappointment pull her lips taught and her eyes narrow. She wasn’t going to say anything unless if I did.

     “You alright?” I played the dumb card.

     Narissa took a moment to choose her words, “I could have taken the bus.”

     “No, it’s fine,” I lied and was about to do it again, “I’m fine.”

     Her icicle eyes glared at me through the rearview mirror, “Seriously, Vic, this needs to stop. If you’re not cool with something, just tell me. You don’t have to prove anything.”

     I shut the music off, “What was I supposed to do? Stay home? Prove to everybody that Victor can’t deal with Athena? She’s got David, you’ve got Will, and I’ve got nothing.”

     “No one expects you to deal with Athena. I don’t expect you to deal with Athena.”

     “I do.”

     “Vic, no one would blame you. If you guys ‘were cool’, you wouldn’t have broken up.”

     “That’s not true.” my fingers toyed with the steering wheel seams again, “Fine, maybe I do wish I could have someone like Athena again. If it takes me a couple playlists and a rocky friendship with her to feel good about myself, why would I not do that?”

     “Because it’s killing you, Victor. Slowly, whether you can see it or not. You want to move on?” she nodded at my playlist, “Stop living in her past.”

     Narissa’s words bounced around the inside of my skull. If the thoughts were anything heavier than just electrical impulses, they would have lobotomized me. The past meant movie dates and late night text messages; how could Narissa just expect me to give up the better part of my timeline? 

_ Because I wasn’t moving forward. _

     I slammed the brakes and pulled over. 

     My feelings for Narissa weren’t real. Everything that I had done to keep my mind off of Athena was just another excuse to keep living in her past.

     I checked the GPS, “David’s house is just around the block, I-”

     “I know.” she unbuckled herself and stepped out of the car, “I’ll be fine; are you?”

      “Yeah.” we both winced at the uncertainty in my voice. 

     I rested my head against my side window. I watched as Narissa walked around the front of my car, but instead of walking down the sidewalk to David’s house, she turned back to knock on my driver side window. 

     “Vic?” she waited for me to roll the window down.

     I fought to hold myself together for a few more seconds, “Yeah?”

     “I’m proud of you.”

    As she started down the sidewalk, I locked the door behind her, rolled up my window, and buried my face into my arms.


	8. Shuffle

Despite Narissa and Will’s best efforts to prevent me from feeling like their awkward third wheel, the bottom line was that I was single at Prom. I was an ice cube out of the freezer. I tried to slip away from Narissa’s circle of friends one more time, but Will caught me and called me on it. Warrily, I went back to their circle of friends. 

     What was I trying to prove?

     Aside from being Will and Narissa’s best chauffeur friend forever, there had to be a deeper reason I went through all of the trouble of buying a ticket and ironing a suit just to be miserable. Was this what a future without Athena meant? The booming speakers killed the thought before it could bloom.

     Instantly, the rhythm of the music picked me up. My arms hovered into the air, entranced. My hips and chest moved in waves. Narissa grinned in relief as her body mixed with the music in her own way. Even wideset-Will surrendered himself to the power of the speakers. Then, the end of the song arrived. 

     A song that I didn’t know started to play. Whatever it was, it made most of the dance floor clear out within the first five seconds of it. I listened a little longer to find that it was a slow song. 

     “Where you goin’?” Narissa was the one to catch me slipping away that time.

     “I don’t do slow.” I showed her my palms.

     She rolled her eyes and narrowed them at me.

     “Fine.” I gave in and squeezed between Will and one of Narissa’s friends in the circle.

     They put their arms around me. The huddle started swaying to the slow song like ocean algae. It took me a few tries to match the swings, and even then it still felt weird. At least “weird” felt miles better than dancing alone.

     “Ugh, David…” Will was staring off into the crowd.

     I followed his gaze. I almost didn’t see it at first. But, I caught a glimpse of the second-to-last person that I wanted to see that night. David was making his way towards the bathroom. On the dance floor, he had left behind the main person I didn’t want to see, and she was heading right for us. There was a hiccup in her gait once she saw me, but she kept walking towards us.

     “Over here!” Narissa waved down Athena.

     The arm to my right slid off of me. Before I could protest, the group widened the gap next to me. Narissa stopped swinging. Meekly, I raised my gap arm but kept my eyes to the ground. Like the final piece of the puzzle, Athena clicked into the gap beside me. Her left hand unfurled and perched itself atop my shoulder. My right hand fingers folded into fist and stayed shut behind her back.

     After a few steps, the circle had coursed back into their slow rhythm. Together, we flowed from side to side, shoulder to shoulder.

     A slight tinge of perfume was hanging around Athena. That was new.

     There once was a time when slow dancing with Athena was the one thing that I wanted most. Ever since the Freshman Formal, all I wanted was her touch. The universe heard my cries, but answered them two years too late. We swayed beside one another like two discount bin apples. 

     The song began to die. Athena hadn’t looked up once. Her hand slipped off of my shoulder. My fist went back into being a hand. I pushed myself away from the dance floor before the floodgates had a chance to open. A future without Athena had to exist. I let the music beat down the thoughts of her as I pushed open the doors to the outside world.

     Whipping winds whistled through the courtyard, something my formal attire was not prepared for. I raked my hair in the direction the hair product would allow, not that I cared about my delicate follicle sculpture. It was the stuff in my brain that I was more concerned about. 

     Avoidance wasn’t the way that Athena and I handled things. My deep breaths turned into clouds of fog just as quickly as my thoughts did. The forbidden thoughts of Athena return from their exile, naturally. 

     The _Athena and Victor way_ meant a face-to-face conversation. If that didn’t work, then we would do it again. And again. Over and over until we at least thought that we had an understanding. 

     Music would have to wait. 

     The rush of stuffy dance floor air nearly knocked me back outside. I trudged forward. Athena wasn’t on the dance floor. David was by himself, hovering around but not near Will and Narissa. Then, I saw her. My heart panged for the way her dress― with its little accents of contrast colors towards the bottom― made her look like a modern queen. She was just hanging by the water pitcher.

     Athena tensed up the moment I stepped into her periphere. She kept her back to me as she moved away from the punch table. As I filled my cup, I could hear the clacks of her dress shoes fading away behind me.

     I didn’t know how she was going to hear me over the music, “Athena!”

     Athena’s steps slowed to an eventual stop.  I watched her let out a teakettle sigh, then she turned around to face me. Her eyes were glazed over at first. They resized and refocused on mine like camera lenses. She found the seat closest to her, then sat with her drink still in hand. She patted the open seat beside hers.

     My brain lurched to a stop. Unlike with what just happened on the dance floor, there was nothing forcing me to talk to Athena then. The pull of the music, of my headphones locked up somewhere at coat check, impaled my resolve to say something to her.

     My feet kicked in gear first. I had to feel. I kept walking towards her until the rest of my body felt the same assurance.

     The seat beside her was as cold as the ensuing silence.

     Sitting cross-legged, feet apart, we looked down at the dance floor instead of each other. Somewhere out there, David was waiting for Athena. Will and Narissa were busy being put on a pedestal by the freelance photographers. I had no one. 

     “I love you even though I shouldn’t.”  I shot my gaze down my paper cup. I let the drink wash away the rawness in my throat. The water tinkered between the gears of self-consciousness within.

     “I know,” Athena’s gaze went glossy again, “I used to, too.”

     I could still feel the tenderness in my throat. I tilted my head back. All I got was a drop. 

     “Here.” she slid me her filled paper cup and plucked my empty one off of the tablecloth. 

     “Thanks,” I downed the pitiful cup in one gulp. 

     My throat still felt raw, but not raw enough to stop me from answering the question neither of us had to put forward. “It wouldn’t work. Second chances might work for people like Narissa or Will, but not for people like us.”

     “Mhm.” she gave me nothing. 

     I let the silence stew for a few seconds, “I hate how alike we are. You’re the kind of person that has to fill their schedule up to the brim just to feel successful. Even now, with no free-periods your senior year, a part-time job, and a club almost every day of the week, you still feel-”  
    “-nothing.”

     “Nothing.” 

     Other kids at the dance were in hot pursuit of each other, everywhere. The dance hall screamed horny, the punch bowl cried out in shy loneliness. Not us. Athena and I were sitting next to each other making cold getaways. 

     “Fuck,” she looked up at me at last, worriedly kneading the cup in her palms, “What should I do?”

     I tried to clear my throat then took a deep breath, “I’m sorry.”

     “I know that.”

     “No, you don’t. I lied to you.”

     Athena stopped playing with the cup, “What?”

     “You were right. I lied to you,” my thoughts were starting to hemorrhage, “I was in love with somebody else, too.”

     Athena choked on thin air, “I-”

     “-so when you told me that you hid David from me because you didn’t want to hurt me,” I croaked under my breath, “I knew. As stupid as it was logically, I knew why you did it. As goddamn painful as it turned out to be― look at us now― I understand why you did it. Because I looked that other girl in the eyes and told her that I was in love with you, and I never told you about her.”

     “Narissa?”

     I was done lying to Athena, to myself, “No. Someone else.”

     “Why didn’t you...” she let her tears loose in front of me for the first time, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

     “You know why.”

     “I don’t.” Athena was lying to herself and she knew it. 

     “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

     “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

     “I could’ve, but I just-”

     My fingers were too close to hers. How long had they been like that?

     I slid my hand back, “Everyone deserves a good Prom night.”

     Her eyes were as red as mine, “I love-”

     “Don’t say it.”

     She wrapped her arms around me before I could protest. It felt good to be in her arms again, for real this time. My hands worked their way behind her back, palms open. We folded into each other and wept. 

     The hug broke, but we were still holding each other at arm's length. With tears streaming down our faces, we couldn’t help but laugh at the grave we had dug ourselves into. After three years, we’d made a real cozy tomb to lay our feelings to rest in. 

     Athena dusted off one of my shoulders, “I love the way we both turned out.”

     She took a step back, as did I. Her past would be a part of me forever, but I didn’t have to live in it anymore. 

     “Is this goodbye for real?” Athena seemed glad to be at the end of a marathon. 

     I gave up on wiping my tears, “Yeah, goodbye for real this time. I promise.”

     “Okay,” she laughed nervously, “Goodbye, Victor.”

     “Goodbye, Athena.” 

     I turned on a dime and started walking. I didn’t stop walking until I was back where the air was cold and the thoughts were colder. Well, I was only part way out the door. I still had stuff at coat check to grab before I could leave. Keeping my eyes off of the dancefloor, I swung the corner and tapped the check in desk.

     “Here.” I slipped my bag number to the guy at the check in desk and watched him disappear into the rows upon rows of bags.

     Somewhere in my chest, the music was calling me. My motors within were winding up, begging me to let them dance. I could sense the beats through my bones; the song wouldn’t have been that hard to dance to. 

     Athena on the dancefloor stole my attention at last. There she was, fingers interlaced with David’s. Beside them, Narissa and Will were absolutely losing their minds to the music. The bittersweet feeling in my heart was like coffee that hadn’t steeped for long enough. I very clearly remembered the last time I saw Athena that happy. I let the memory stay a moment, cherished it, and set it free.

     I chuckled. Music was the last thing that I needed.

     Check-in guy bumped me with my paper bag, “Have a nice night.”

     “Will do, you too.” I gave a courtesy wave.

     With my coat back on and my headphones tucked into my pocket, I stepped back into the chill of the night. The last inklings of dance music died as the double doors slid shut behind me, as if I had been sucked into a vacuum. 

     I checked the time. There was easily enough time to chip away at my internal to-dos. At home, there were character lines to remember and songs to practice. Glee club could do with some structure, or at least weekly activity plans to act as its backbone. 

     For the first time in a while, the way forward felt easy. That was the _Athena and Victor way_. I got into my car and began the long drive home.


End file.
